Serenity rolled over in bed to face Sol. The star had just risen, and it's warm, yellow glow drifted through the diaphanous curtain over their bedroom window onto Sol's face. It woke her up a few minutes ago as it crawled along her face, and now the ray had just reached his eyes, and his long blonde lashes fluttered as he began to wake up. She tickled his cheek with her fingers and sighed sadly.
Sol snagged her fingers and brought them to his lips to kiss them. She smiled fondly at him as he asked, "What's wrong, Serenity?"
She ran her hand along his cheek and her smile widened a little as her fingers felt the stiff little bristles of his beard. "Do you really have to pilot the ship? Couldn't Hermes or--"
He sadly shook his head. "You know I'm the best pilot, Serenity--"
"But it'll be so dangerous!" she wailed forlornly.
"Yes, it will be, but that's why it has to be me. I have the most chance of coming back alive. Surely you realize that."
Serenity looked down. "But--"
"Besides, you'll be there. What kind of husband would let his wife be put in such danger when he wouldn't accept it himself?"
Serenity sighed. "I know you're right. I just don't feel good about it at all."
Sol moved in closer to her. "Why don't we see if I can make you feel better, then, hmm?"
Serenity giggled.
*****
"We've evacuated Minerva's planet. There may be traitors that moved it with her, but we can't kill them for it. Besides, all long range transmitters but one have been destroyed." Hermes said to the council.
Aphrodite stood up. "But what good will that do? They already know where we are. They can just send another fleet whenever they feel like it."
Hermes shook his head. "No, they won't. That's why we worked so hard to evacuate everyone from off the outer planets. The Haven ships will only see unsettled planets when they pass through the system on their way to Minerva, and they'll begin to doubt Minerva's information. We'll send a doctored message out with Serenity's transmitter, the last left, where Minerva informs Chaos that she not only lied to Haven, but set a trap for the government fleet. Then we'll let them watch a live transmission of the destruction of Minerva's planet and their fleet. That will convince them we aren't really here." He smiled a sarcastic smile, mocking himself and those around him. "After all, what nutcase would destroy a whole planet in their own system? Right?"
Aphrodite bobbed down in a quick approximation of a bow. "I concede, Hermes. You are much too smart for me."
He simply nodded back. "Of course I am."
Serenity rolled her eyes and stood up. "Before this degenerates into pure silliness--" she gave a fond warning glance to both Hermes and Aphrodite, "I'm going to dismiss this meeting. We all know what to do, right?" Everyone around the table nodded. "Good. Let's go then." She walked over to Sol. "Let's get to that ship. The sooner this is over with, the sooner I can stop worrying about you."
*****
"Ready?" Hermes' tinny voice called out through the intercom.
Sol answered with his own "Ready!" and began to power up the ship. Serenity sat strapped in her gravity chair and held Ginzuishou in her hands. Such a lot of trouble over such a small stone. Such a powerful stone. Dangerous stone.
"Hold tight, dear!" Sol called out as the engines whirred to life. She was pressed back into the cushioned seat, and closed her eyes. When she felt herself become nearly weightless she unstrapped herself and carefully drifted over to float behind Sol. He looked up at her with an excited smile. "The ship that Charon's on is a little ways behind us. We'll be up close and personal with the Haven fleet in just a few minutes. Ready to go on the air."
Serenity made her crystal flare to life, and made it pulse dangerously, in time with her heartbeat. He grinned recklessly at her as his finger moved to hover over the transmit button. Serenity squared her shoulders and stared into the holocamera. Sol's finger pressed down, and Serenity opened her mouth to talk.
*****
"Attention, Haven fleet. Attention, Haven fleet. Turn around, and do not attack us here. I repeat, turn around and retreat, or I will be forced to do you all grave harm."
Captain Paris spun around at the steel armored feminine voice that emerged from the holocommunitcator. A woman of the Serenity family stood before him, and she was holding.... it .
He looked over to the comms man, who shook his head. "They're in transmit mode only, sir. There's no way we can respond."
The captain nodded. "Can you tell where they're transmitting from?"
The man nodded. "They tried to conceal it, sir, but they didn't do a good job."
He smiled. What a good group of boys he had. His crew was full of the most talented men. "Give the coordinates to the helm, and we'll go after 'em."
The comms man began typing, then stopped and looked back up at the captain in surprise. "There's a message coming from the Trojan, sir--secure channel."
"Just play it, Lieutenant."
"Sir." Comms pressed the correct buttons.
"Captain Paris, this is the Trojan. My scanners have detected another ship, one other than the one transmitting the message. Request permission to break off from formation to investigate, sir."
"Negative, Captain Hector. Maintain formation."
"Sir, I--"
"Did you hear me, Captain?"
"Sir! Yes I did, sir! But I really think someone should investigate-"
Paris cut off the audio, but sat and thought for a second. They were in a position of strength here. One ship missing from formation wouldn't be a big loss, and they might find something of importance on that ship. He thumbed the audio back on. "Very well, Trojan. You, and you alone, may go off to investigate the other ship."
"Thank you sir! Trojan out."
Captain Paris turned to his helmsman. "Follow that ship, ensign. Don't let her get away."
"Aye aye!"
*****
Charon suddenly popped onto the ship and held her hand out to Serenity. "Hurry up, Serenity! Let's go! And you be ready to let me know when you need to get out, Sol."
Serenity grabbed Charon's hand as Sol turned around enough to catch sight of Charon and give her a jaunty thumbs up. "No problem. Just keep an eye on my wife for me."
Charon smiled. No one was immune to Sol's charm. "Sure, Sol. See you in a bit."
Serenity turned toward her husband. "Goodbye. I l--"
The air shimmered into Aphrodite's pleasure yacht around her.
"--ove you..." She stopped. She hadn't even gotten a chance to say that to him.
"Sorry about that Serenity, but your husband was going to start evasive maneuvers, and I was not about to try to hold coordinates in my mind with the ship we were on weaving all over the place."
Serenity smiled at her friend. "That's okay. I'll just tell him twice when he gets back."
Charon smiled. "That's the spirit."
Luna and Artemis both looked up from their place at the ship's controls. "Fasten the straps of your gravity chairs, ladies. There's a ship on approach vector--it's broken off from formation and it's coming straight for us."
*****
"The ship is using evasive maneuvers, sir. It's a first class personal yacht, with minimal weaponry."
"Very good. We'll use the tractor beam to pull it into Cargo Bay One."
"Aye sir. Pulling it in."
"Very well. Commander?" Captain Hector turned to his first in command.
"Sir?"
"Prepare a boarding party. Be careful, a few of these rebels are quite dangerous."
"Yes sir!"
Hector turned back to the view screen and wondered how Paris and the rest of the fleet were doing.
*****
"She's drawing us toward the planet, Captain! Should we follow?"
"That's the planet our agent has settled on. It should be safe for us. Follow."
"Yes sir!"
*****
"I can't pull away, everyone! Get ready!" Artemis clutched his chair as their ship was dropped onto the floor of the enemy ship's hold with a shivering thud. As soon as they'd landed everyone struggled with their straps in a desperate attempt to get out of their seats. Just as Luna stood up first, with a triumphant cry, troops dressed in black battle armor broke in the hatch and piled into the ship. Serenity watched the leader of the assault as his eyes widened in surprise behind his shaded visor. He'd recognized her. He raised his gun and Serenity braced herself for the blast that was about to come.
The soldier pulled the trigger.
"No!" Serenity heard someone shout, and a small black creature leapt in the air between her and the laser gun blast. Artemis then stepped in front of her and began to shoot wildly with his own drawn weapon. He was a crack shot, he got five before they hit him. When he was hit a second time, in his right shoulder, he dropped his gun and fell to his knees, and Serenity snatched up his fallen weapon and began shooting at the remaining soldiers. Charon had drawn her own weapon by then, and the two noblewomen shot an impressive volley out at their enemies. Serenity was so filled with adrenaline she didn't even notice as one shot grazed her left arm, and another her leg. She finally felt a beam that hit the top edge of her ear since she noticed the bright light as it went just past her eye. She took a quick look over at Charon, and saw her down on one knee, the other leg was bleeding a lot--too much.
[This isn't working!] Serenity thought to herself, and dropped the gun to pull out Ginzuishou. She closed her eyes and thought hard about blowing the attacking bastards out of Aphrodite's ship. It worked. She heard screams of surprised pain as men were thrown against the bulkheads of Aphrodite's yacht, then silence as they thudded down to the ground. She opened her eyes and ran over to Charon. "Are you all right?" she gasped out. Charon shook her head.
"Not really. I was shot in the leg. There's not too much blood, so an artery wasn't hit, but I definitely feel a little bit under the weather."
Artemis dragged himself over to them, carrying a small black furry body with him.
"What's that?" Charon asked. Artemis looked up with narrowed blue eyes, and Charon moved back with a frightened cry.
"This is Luna." He cradled her gently in his arms, and Serenity gasped at the spreading red stain that marred an otherwise impeccable ebony coat. "She's dying."
"Can we do anything, Artemis?"
"No." He shook his head and his long hair swept slowly back and forth, hypnotic as a swinging pocketwatch. "Luckily she was able to get into cat form before she threw herself in front of you, Lady Serenity, or this death would be her final death."
"What do you mean?"
"Cats have nine lives." He caressed her small head and swept back her velvet ears with tears in his eyes, then he looked up. "We have to get off this ship, but those soldiers ripped the hatch right off its hinges. I don't think we're going to make it."
Serenity looked at Charon. "You'll have to teleport us out of here."
Charon shook her head. "I can't transport more than one person other than myself at full strength, and I'm very weak right now."
Artemis looked at Serenity. "You should go, m'Lady. You're the most important person here."
Serenity picked up Ginzuishou and it blazed to life. "I'll give you the strength to get us all out with Ginzuishou, Charon. We can all make it." She got up and began to type something in to the control panel of Aphrodite's yacht.
Charon looked up at her uncertainly. "I don't think I can, Serenity, I--"
"You'd better," Serenity interrupted, "because I just set this ship's self destruct mechanism. We have one minute before this ship sends it's nuclear reactor into meltdown and blows the hell out of the warship's structural integrity!"
Charon and Artemis both sat up straight at that little bit of news. "But--" Charon began, eyes wide with shock.
Serenity shook her head. "No time for 'but's, it's time to do, or die."
Charon gritted her teeth. "Okay. Hold tight to me, everyone!"
Charon reached out with her mind and pulled toward Serenity's palace.
Serenity shook her head to clear her disorientation.
"What the hell are you doing here, Charon?! Sol's been signaling for at least a minute that he needs to get out!" Hermes looked up from his console. Suddenly the angry red look faded from his face. "Uh, did you know that you're bleeding?" Charon collapsed to the ground without a word. "Oh, I-uh-guess you did."
Serenity ignored his useless babble and knelt next to her friend. "Charon? Sol needs you! You have to get up!"
"I'll need more strength, Serenity. A lot more."
Serenity dove into Ginzuishou and pulled every ounce of energy she could. She pulled until she felt her eyes were about to pop out with all the energy she held, then shoved it all into Charon. Her friend screamed as enormous amounts of energy flowed into her and teleported them to the desperately waiting Sol.
Serenity stumbled as she landed in Hermes' speedy little ship, and she looked at its course. They were very close to Minerva's planet. Too close--Hades was going to blow it up soon. They had to get Sol out of here.
"Sol! Sol! We're here!"
Her husband looked up at her. The ship had taken a beating, despite his excellent piloting skills, and he'd been thrown around a bit--he had a black eye and a cracked lip that spilled blood all down the right side of his face, but he was still grinning that wonderful, reckless smile. He got out of the pilot's chair to stand on two very unsteady legs and weaved his way toward her. She put a hand on his bloody cheek. He'd forgotten to shave that morning--it was still rough with stubble.
"About time. Why are you here? What's happened to you two?" Sol's face went from cheerful recognition to worry as he saw the blaster stains and shallow wounds on Serenity, and took in Charon's terrible state-a wet, red stain was spreading under her again. Serenity couldn't help wondering a little hysterically exactly how much blood Charon could have left.
"We were attacked--barely got out. C'mon! We have to go!"
"Link hands, you two," Charon said weakly.
Serenity held tight to her husband and Charon with her hands while her mind once more struggled to pull power from Ginzuishou. She was infinitely tired, and she could tell she wasn't getting as much as before to Charon, but she kept trying, hoping her friend could still pull it off.
Her fragile hopes were shattered as Charon began to sob and fell back to her knees. "I can't do it. There's just not enough energy! I can't carry three...."
Serenity heard Sol ask, "How about two?" but her tired mind didn't realize what he was planning until Charon answered that she probably could handle two.
"No!" She held to his hand as tight as she could. "NO! All or nothing! I WON'T LEAVE YOU!" Sol had already let go of Charon's hand, and he gently but firmly pulled her hand away and took a step back.
"NO! SOL!"
He smiled again, sad but proud, and blew her a soft kiss as reality wavered from a smoking, cracked mockery of a spaceship into the command headquarters of the battle in her private palace. She heard Hermes say, "They're here, Hades, go ahead," in a wavy voice, as if he was speaking through a foot of water, but before she could scream out that Sol wasn't with them Hades bowed his head and black ribbons swirled around his Silence Glaive. Serenity looked out the window in despair to see a new, terrible star born in the sky.
She ran to the window and stared up at her husband's funeral pyre.
"I love you," she whispered softly through a sudden flood of tears. "I love you."